After reading a few days worth of carping about Joe Biden’s performance, I decided enough’s enough and responded at New York:
Joe Biden has been president of the United States for 43 days. He inherited power from a predecessor who was trying to overturn the 2020 election results via insurrection just two weeks before Inaugural Day, and whose appointees refused the kind of routine transition cooperation other administrations took for granted. His party has a four-vote margin of control in the House, and only controls the Senate via the vice presidential tie-breaking vote (along with a power-sharing arrangement with Republicans). Democratic control of the Senate was not assured until the wee hours of January 6 when the results of the Georgia runoff were clear. Biden took office in the midst of a COVID-19 winter surge, a national crisis over vaccine distribution, and flagging economic indicators.
Biden named all his major appointees well before taking office, and as recommended by every expert, pushed for early confirmation of his national security team, which he quickly secured. After some preliminary discussions with Republicans that demonstrated no real possibility of GOP support for anything like the emergency $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief and stimulus package he had promised, and noting the votes weren’t there in the Senate for significant filibuster reform, Biden took the only avenue open to him. He instructed his congressional allies to pursue the budget reconciliation vehicle to enact his COVID package, with the goal of enacting it by mid-March, when federal supplemental unemployment insurance would run out. Going the reconciliation route meant exposing the package to scrutiny by the Senate parliamentarian, It also virtually guaranteed total opposition from congressional Republicans, which in turn meant Senate Democratic unanimity would be essential.
The House passed the massive and complex reconciliation bill on February 27, right on schedule, with just two Democratic defections, around the same time as the Senate parliamentarian, to no one’s great surprise, deemed a $15 minimum wage provision (already opposed by two Senate Democrats) out of bounds for reconciliation. The Senate is moving ahead with a modified reconciliation bill, and the confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet is chugging ahead slowly but steadily. Like every recent president, he’s had to withdraw at least one nominee – in his case Neera Tanden for the Office of Management and Budget, though the administration’s pick for deputy OMB director is winning bipartisan praise and may be substituted smoothly for Tanden.
Add in his efforts to goose vaccine distribution — which has more than doubled since he took office — and any fair assessment of Biden’s first 43 days should be very positive. But the man is currently being beset by criticism from multiple directions. Republicans, of course, have united in denouncing Biden’s refusal to surrender his agenda in order to secure bipartisan “unity” as a sign that he’s indeed the radical socialist – or perhaps the stooge of radical socialists – that Donald Trump always said he was. Progressives are incensed by what happened on the minimum wage, though it was very predictable. And media critics are treating his confirmation record as a rolling disaster rather than a mild annoyance, given the context of a federal executive branch that was all but running itself for much of the last four years.
To be clear, I found fault with Biden’s presidential candidacy early and often. I didn’t vote for him in California’s 2020 primary. I worried a lot about Biden’s fetish for bipartisanship. I support a $15 minimum wage, and as a former Senate employee, have minimal respect for the upper chamber’s self-important traditions. But c’mon: what, specifically, is the alternative path he could have pursued the last 43 days? Republican criticism is not worthy of any serious attention: the GOP is playing the same old tapes it recorded in 2009 when Barack Obama (and his sidekick Biden) spent far too much time chasing Republican senators around Washington in search of compromises they never intended to make. While they are entitled to oppose Biden’s agenda, they are not entitled to kill it.
Progressive criticism of Biden feels formulaic. Years and years of investment in the rhetoric of the eternal “fight” and the belief that outrage shapes outcomes in politics and government have led to the habit of seeing anything other than total subscription to the left’s views as a sell-out. Yes, Kamala Harris could theoretically overrule the Senate parliamentarian on the minimum wage issue, but to what end? So long as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema oppose the $15 minimum wage, any Harris power play could easily be countered by a successful Republican amendment to strike the language in question, and perhaps other items as well. And if the idea is to play chicken with dissident Democrats over the fate of the entire reconciliation bill, is a $15 minimum wage really worth risking a $1.9 trillion package absolutely stuffed with subsidies for struggling low-income Americans? Are Fight for 15 hardliners perhaps conflating ends and means here?
Media carping about Biden’s legislative record so far is frankly just ridiculous. Presumably writing about the obscure and complicated details of reconciliation bills is hard and unexciting work that readers may find uninteresting, while treating Tanden’s travails as an existential crisis for the Biden administration provides drama, but isn’t at all true. The reality is that Biden’s Cabinet nominees are rolling through the Senate with strong confirmation votes (all but one received at least 64 votes), despite a steadily more partisan atmosphere for confirmations in recent presidencies. The COVID-19 bill is actually getting through Congress at a breakneck pace despite its unprecedented size and complexity. Trump’s first reconciliation bill (which was principally aimed at repealing Obamacare) didn’t pass the House until May 4, 2017, and never got through the Senate. Yes, Obama got a stimulus bill through Congress in February 2009, but it was less than half the size, much simpler, and more to the point, there were 59 Senate Democrats in office when it passed, which meant he didn’t even have to use reconciliation.
There’s really no exact precedent for Biden’s situation, particularly given the atmosphere of partisanship in Washington and the whole country right now, and the narrow window he and his party possess – in terms of political capital and time – to get important things done. He should not be judged on any one legislative provision or any one Cabinet nomination. So far the wins far outweigh the losses and omissions. Give the 46th president a break.
Ed,
thanks for the response. It appears you posted while I was composing. I appreciate the clarification. It looks like we are more in agreement than I thought.
Tom.
Joe, I take your point and I probably missed that nuance in my pique. Thanks for highlighting that.
What irritated me initially is the implication by Reid et al that we out here in the real world need to just shut up and that our attempts to speak out against these kinds of unprincipled power plays by the Blue Dogs is somehow “unfair.” It isn’t unfair at all, nor is it premature. I have every right, as a lifelong contributing Democrat, to criticize members of my political party when I think they deserve it. And I think the Bayhs and the Liebermans deserve criticism when they team up with Republicans to start wars and to scuttle bankruptcy reform and to throw monkey wrenches in budget legislation to save this economy and to advance the Democratic agenda for which they were elected.
Kilgore doesn’t have to use such loaded, inflammatory mischaracterizations to make his point, i.e. “those who want to lump all Democratic “centrists” into the putative-‘traitor’ camp”. His dismissive tone, it seems to me, is a deliberate attempt to marginalize the views of progressives and centrists. By tossing out these loaded terms the points that you suggested he was making get lost in ever more heat and ever less light.
Thanks for all the comments. I guess I’m a bit taken aback by the idea that I’ve willfully offended any progressives. Joe Corso’s right: the whole point of my post was the Bayh crossed a critical line on a huge vote, and needs to stop putting himself forward as representative of “centrists” or much of anybody else in the Democratic Party.
As for the “S word,” “sincere”: hell, I can’t see into the man’s soul, but neither can anybody else; I find it easier to think he’s drunk his own anti-deficit kool-aid than to think he’s made some shrewd, cynical political calculation. As these comments and many others suggest, he’s terribly damaged his own standing in the Democratic Party, and no, I don’t really buy the idea that he’ll get more attention now than he would have gotten as leader of a 16-member Democratic group in the Senate, so long as he voted for the budget resolution.
So if Evan Bayh was as conniving as so many folks clearly think he is, then he’s a really poor conniver.
On one small note: to those who think Bayh’s vote for the higher exclusion and lower rate on estate taxes proves he doesn’t care about deficits, I would point out that this was the default position of virtually all Democrats until the total repeal enacted in 2001 sunsetted (at least those who didn’t support total repeal, and there were a disturbing number of those, BTW). So maybe Bayh is just trying to be consistent on this one thing. It certainly doesn’t make his opposition to the budget resolution look very brave or noble, does it?
In any event, what’s more interesting than how I or anyone else construes Bayh’s motives is the main question I tried to raise in the post: will anyone follow him now? I doubt it.
I think we’re having a problem with the word “sincere” here. the word has positive connotations that seem quite inappropriate in this context.
Does this help — a craven,amoral, money-sucking hyena can be a sincerely craven, money-sucking hyena.
correction – in the second paragraph I meant to say that Bayh was clearly in the “first” category, not the “second”
Tom:
It seems to me that Ed is making a distinction between two notions of “centrism” – as he says “between “centrists” who do want to stand aside from the Democratic Party and cut deals, and those who don’t.”
He is characterizing Bayh’s behavior as clearly in the second category and calling on him to resign in favor of in favor of “senators whose agreement with and loyalty to the Obama agenda is much less in question” if they want to be “anything other than a crude power bloc looking to shake down the administration and the congressional leadership for personal, ideological, and special-interest favors.”
As a labor-progressive Democrat myself, I don’t see any of this as insulting a progressive perspective. There are some moderate Democrats I disagree with on issues but very much want in the Democratic Party. Then there are guys we’d be better off without. I think Ed’s trying to make that distinction and not trying to put down progressives.
Here’s a little item Ed, that maybe you can address with respect to “sincere” Evan Bayh:
Thanks to the efforts of Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and others, a bill allowing bankruptcy judges to cram-down mortgage payments for troubled homeowners hasn’t seen the light of day since it passed the House in early March. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is actually thinking of pulling the cram-down provision from the legislation, since it has met such fierce resistance, fueled by a misinformation campaign based on Mortgage Bankers Association talking points.
This is the kind of stuff, anti-constituent and anti- big D Democratic, that people find objectionable. Please explain to me, during these very, very tough times, that Bayh would play this kind of game. What “sincere”, “principled” objections does he have to amending the draconian bankruptcy bill, which he supported? I’ll look forward to your explanation, because I cannot understand it.
Source:
Wonk Room » Mortgage Modifications Hitting Roadblocks, As Cram-Down Bill Languishes In Senate
That’s quite a stretch, Ed. If Bayh is such a sincere “deficit hawk” then please explain his support of reducing the so-called death tax.
I agree with the gentleman above. You are completely misreading the objections to Bayh from progressives and others. It isn’t a “loyalty test” at all, and it isn’t a matter of being a “traitor.” The man is without discernible principles. The man is anti-constituent.
Bayh’s vote on the budget will provide abundant ammunition to those who want to lump all Democratic “centrists” into the putative-“traitor” camp
You know, Ed, I hope that at some point we can have a discussion without you insider strategists going out of your way to insult us with your glib, willingly obtuse “misunderstanding” of online progressives and centrists and what we are trying to do. I guess you gain some cred with your more right-of-center media buddies when you piss off “the libruls” but at some point that isn’t going to work any more.
Will you try to meet us halfway for a more constructive discussion? That would entail you actually listening and trying to understand what the objections to Bayh’s position is.
Nothing is more irritating to this old-time labor Democrat than for my perfectly reasonable positions to be constantly mischaracterized. It isn’t getting us anywhere that we want to be when you keep doing that.
lump all Democratic “centrists” into the putative-“traitor” camp even though 14 members of the “Bayh group” voted with the rest of the Democratic Caucus
Ed, I think you’re misreading the left blogosphere’s perspective. It is precisely this kind of random, ride-the-fence vacillation, untethered to any identifiable principle or fiscal rationale, that raises hackles.
This, however, sums said perspective up perfectly:
a crude power bloc looking to shake down the administration and the congressional leadership for personal, ideological, and special-interest favors
Add “and get their mugs on television” and you’ve got a post fit for the Great Orange Satan.